On Wednesday, June 27, 2001, the five dissident members of the Pacifica
National Board sent a memo to the rest of the members of the Board. As
of today, June 29th, there has been no response. Please feel free to
share this with others.

a) CANCELLATION OF OUR JULY 1st MEETING
On June 14, 2001 we received a notice from Jennifer Spearman indicating
that the Executive Director had asked her to inform us that the National
Board meeting scheduled for July 1st was cancelled.

As you know from the messages from us since the March 4th Board meeting
was suspended, we have attempted, unsuccessfully, to learn when and
where the next Board meeting would be held.

We had to obtain a legal opinion from Pacifica's counsel verifying that
all of us are indeed members of the Board and entitled to notice and
participation. We submitted, without acknowledgement, items for
inclusion on the agenda (June 8th memo to David Acosta, cc'd to the full
Board.)

We were alarmed and upset that the July 1st meeting was cancelled.
Briefly:

1) Our bylaws require us to have three meetings annuallly.

2) Most of the business done at Board meetings are not affected by the
current lawsuits; this is not a valid reason for cancelling the meeting.

3) As we understand it, the Pacifica Foundation faces a $20,000
cancellation fee from the hotel where we were supposed to meet. We
believe it is wasteful of the Foundation's resources to have to incur
such a large expense.

Finally, in the event that the decision to cancel the July 1st meeting
was made by the Executive Director, that is inappropriate. Such
decisions, obviously, should be made by the full Board.

B) KEN FORD'S MESSAGE ABOUT THE FBI
We take exception to the June 17, 2001 memo from Ken Ford, declaring his
intention to turn over threathening, harrassing, or intimidating mail to
the FBI. We are extremely alarmed and must raise our objection.

During the course of this controversy, we have all received unpleasant
correspondence. But none of us has the unilateral authority to involve a
federal agency such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (which has
historically been a bitter enemy of both Pacifica and the constitutional
rights of individuals) into the internal affairs of the Pacifica
Foundation.

A decision like this should never be made by one person on our Board. A
decision that brings the FBI - or any other policing agency - into our
front door can only be made in full consultation with the National Board
membership.

There are other important concerns related to this, and so we refer you
to an open letter that Matthew Lasar sent to Ken Ford on June 23, 2001.
(see below)

We urge that a discussion of the full Board be convened as quickly as
possible, by phone conference call if necessary, in order to reverse
this action.

A message has come to my attention, purporting to come from you, in
which you ask members of the Pacifica Governing Board to send what they
experience as distressing listener e-mails to your offices. You, if I
understand this message correctly, may then forward these documents to
the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). They may then form the basis
of a Racketeering in Corrupt Organizations (RICO) suit against various
Pacifica reform groups or individuals that you do not like.

Mr. Ford, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to learn that this
e-mail (enclosed below) is a fake and that I am the gullible victim of a
clever Internet hoax. But if the message is real, I am very alarmed and
implore you to reconsider acting on it. I understand that you do not
enjoy being called upon to resign by thousands of people across the
United States. Since I am familiar with Pacifica, I know that some of
these messages may be rude. But inviting the FBI into this situation
puts the organization that you represent in great danger.

If the Pacifica radio network has a natural predator, it is the FBI. In
the early 1980s Pacifica obtained the network's Freedom of Information
Act FBI files. I urge you to read these documents, which about six years
ago I filed and sorted as volunteer archivist for the Pacifica National
Office Papers. Since the 1950s, the Bureau has been poking, prodding,
invading, infiltrating and harassing this organization in the most
irresponsible and aggressive ways. It has planted informers within the
network, sent agents pretending to be private citizens to inquire about
the organization, and far worse.

In 1962, two staff members at WBAI in New York City interviewed a former
FBI trainee about his experiences at the Bureau, and prepared to put his
comments on the air in late October. After reading internal Bureau files
during this period, I concluded that the FBI got wind of this program
through a highly placed informer at KPFA in Berkeley (I do not know the
identity of this person). Although Pacifica governing board members
offered the FBI equal time to respond to the trainee's charges, the
Bureau opted instead to begin a reckless campaign of harassment,
including visits to staff members' homes, hostile anonymous phone calls,
and threats of a raid at WBAI if the program was aired.

When WBAI broadcast the program anyway, the Bureau dossiered everyone of
consequence within the Pacifica network, and forwarded its encyclopedia
to the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS) and Federal
Communications Commission (FCC). The SISS used the materials to subpoena
and grill about 8 members of the National Board in hearings in
Washington, D.C., then released transcripts of the hearings to a hostile
press. The FCC, under the guidance of a former FBI agent who now served
as a Commissioner, withheld Pacifica's licenses and demanded loyalty
oaths. Even after the network survived this ordeal, which it did barely,
the FBI continued to worm its way into and around the organization.

Do you imagine that Pacifica no longer broadcasts programming that
displeases the FBI? Quite the contrary; in fact, some of Pacifica's most
prominent programmers have, very recently, published books exposing the
FBI's unethical activities. Through the 1970s, 1980s and to varying
degrees still, the organization functions as a clearing house for the
conclusions of every radical investigative journalist in the country.

Surely the FBI hates Pacifica radio. Do you really believe that if you
invite the Bureau into the internal life of Pacifica, its operatives
will narrowly adhere to the tasks you set before them, and meekly depart
from the scene upon your command? This is the FBI, I remind you, that
recently withheld information about the Timothy McVeigh case and put Wen
Ho Lee in solitary confinement for a year. This week the newspapers
report on an FBI operative who allegedly sold information to organized
crime for tens of thousands of dollars.

"Unmanageable, unaccountable and unreliable," a United States Senator
called the FBI on Thursday during a Congressional hearing about the
Bureau. If you actually plan to bring the FBI to this situation, do you
think that it will remain under your control? Up until this month you
were toying with a small but precious radio network; at that point you
will be playing with fire.

The question is, do you care? Mr. Ford, I don't know you. I do know that
if you do not publicly repudiate this extremely ill-advised recourse, it
is only further evidence of your lack of qualifications to have anything
to do with the governance of this network.

In any event, if the FBI calls me for any reason regarding this matter,
I will heed the advice that Lewis Hill gave to KPFA's listeners
regarding the Bureau's activities in 1949, a year when it was extremely
dangerous to give such counsel: "The FBI is a contemptible institution
and the whole country knows it," the founder of Pacifica radio declared.
" . . . Refuse to cooperate. Say, No. Say, I for my part will not."